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P&G Shampoo Brands Dominate Amazon Search Results

Having strong brand visibility in Amazon.com search results is important to advertisers because it means greater exposure to Amazon’s valuable, in-market shoppers and greater potential for those shoppers to click on and purchase the advertiser’s product.

A recent Kantar Media report examining shampoo brand performance in Amazon.com search results found P&G brands to be the most visible on key shampoo-related keywords.

As part of the study, we used the Brand Visibility Score feature of Kantar Media’s eCommerce Search Ad Insight solution to assess the top five brands on three of the most searched shampoo-related keywords on Amazon.com from April 1 through April 30, including ‘shampoo’, ‘shampoo and conditioner’ and ‘dandruff shampoo’.

A key indicator of how visible a brand is in Amazon.com search results, Brand Visibility Score is assigned based on analysis of a range of search marketing data, including the percentage of time the brand’s sponsored and organic listings are found in the top 3 positions on the search results page for specific keywords and the total number of listings found.

For all three keywords, we found P&G brands had earned the highest Brand Visibility Score among all competitors:

On the keyword ‘shampoo’, P&G’s Clairol brand, Herbal Essences, led all competitors with a Brand Visibility Score of 14 out of 100, appearing in the top 3 positions on the Amazon results page 17% of the time when ‘shampoo’ was searched by shoppers during the month. Unilever’s Dove ranked second with Brand Visibility Score of 10.

For the keyword ‘shampoo and conditioner’, P&G’s Pantene was far more visible on Amazon.com in April than its competitors, achieving a Brand Visibility Score of 36 out of 100 compared to an average score of less than 7 for the other brands in the top five. Pantene listings displayed in the top 3 positions on the page more than half of the time (54%) when shoppers searched ‘shampoo and conditioner’ during the month.

For the keyword ‘dandruff shampoo’, P&G’s Head & Shoulders gained a Brand Visibility Score of 27, with its brand listings displaying a commanding 65% of the time in the top three positions on the results page.

The Value of Sponsored Listings

Notably, the study also found that purchasing sponsored ads could significantly increase a brand’s visibility on Amazon. Specifically, we found Head & Shoulders among the top five brands on the keywords ‘shampoo’ and ‘shampoo and conditioner’, based entirely on the strength of Head & Shoulders’ sponsored listings. The fact that Head & Shoulders had no organic listings on either keyword suggests that the brand was aggressively using sponsored listings in April to appear on popular keywords where it naturally may not have displayed otherwise. Across all of the top five advertisers for the three keywords studied, a total of 18% of all listings were sponsored ads compared to 82% organic listings.

Generic Keywords Searched More Than Branded Keywords

On average, search volume for the three unbranded shampoo keywords was 621% greater than search volume for branded shampoo keywords such as 'herbal essences shampoo','pantene shampoo' and 'suave shampoo', indicating the importance of generic keywords for brands seeking to establish relationships with shampoo shoppers on Amazon, who largely appear not to be loyal to any single brand yet.

Speaking of generic keywords, the relatively low Brand Visibility Score for the shampoo brands in the study is common for non-branded keywords; many brands will typically display in Amazon search results on generic keywords, while branded keywords tend to be dominated by the brand being searched. For this reason, brands are more likely to achieve a high Brand Visibility Score for their own branded keywords. Herbal Essences and Pantene, for instance, each garnered a Brand Visibility Score of 100 for their respective keywords, ‘herbal essences shampoo’ and ‘pantene shampoo’.

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